25. The Dropped Scalp

Inside the residence at Unit 1, 8-2, Building 7 of the Jujia Garden Residential Quarter.

Song Hao and his wife, An Lifen, went to sleep at eleven o'clock sharp, as they always did.

Song Xiaoyu, having spent a busy day at the orphanage, took a hot shower in the bathroom after her parents had gone to bed, taking the opportunity to give her hair a thorough wash with the Pikang Shampoo she had bought at the pharmacy today.

Following Shen Xing's suggestion, she had headed to the pharmacy after finishing her volunteer work.

Acting on what Shen Xing had said, she realized her persistent scalp itch was likely due to dermatitis, so she bought this Pikang Shampoo on the recommendation of the pharmacy clerk.

It was said that after a week of consistent use, the itching would significantly improve.

Song Xiaoyu washed her hair very carefully, massaging her scalp thoroughly to ensure the medicated shampoo was fully absorbed.

After showering and blow-drying her hair, Song Xiaoyu quickly climbed into bed, propped herself up to look at her phone for a while, and then turned off the light to sleep.

Around one in the morning, she suddenly woke up from a deep slumber, triggered by an intense itch on her scalp; she had been scratching her head in her sleep without realizing it.

Her fingernails had broken the skin, and the stinging pain from her scalp was what had fully jolted her awake.

Never before had her scalp itched like this, to the point where Song Xiaoyu began to suspect that the Pikang Shampoo might be problematic.

The itching did not subside after she woke up; instead, the sensation at the back of her head intensified, as if her scalp were being torn apart.

While scratching her head, Song Xiaoyu couldn't help but sit up in bed, eyes bleary with sleep, and turned on the bedside lamp before heading to the bedroom bathroom.

Arriving at the bathroom, she turned on the light, stood before the mirror, and tilted her head to inspect it closely. Her scalp hadn't been scratched until it bled, but it remained incredibly itchy.

Song Xiaoyu felt as if her entire head had gone numb. She didn't dare to keep scratching, so she just reached up and gently patted the back of her head.

Although she was desperate to sleep, the itching made it impossible to drift off.

Just then, she felt something fall from the back of her head—it seemed to be a lock of hair, or perhaps... a piece of scalp!

She reached up, grabbed it, and took a look. Sure enough, it was a piece of scalp attached to some hair. The piece of scalp was only about the size of two fingernails and appeared withered, as if it had long since lost all nourishment.

Song Xiaoyu was startled and hurriedly tilted her head to check if there was a bald patch on the back of her head. However, after a careful inspection, she found nothing unusual; everything looked perfectly fine.

This suggested that the fallen scalp and hair might have been the result of natural shedding, rather than alopecia or hair loss.

By now, the itching had subsided significantly after that piece of scalp fell off, and it continued to fade away.

Song Xiaoyu's anxiety eased. She casually tossed the withered scalp and hair into the wastebasket beside the toilet.

She smoothed out her long hair, and since the itching had mostly vanished, she turned off the light, closed the door, and returned to bed to sleep in peace.

About ten minutes later, in the darkness of the bathroom, the withered scalp attached to the long hair inside the wastebasket suddenly moved, and then, this seemingly dried-out scalp slowly unfolded like a thin piece of dough.

Sleeping through to the middle of the night, Song Xiaoyu suddenly woke up again.

This time, it wasn't because of an itchy scalp, but because she had been awakened by a strange sound.

As she woke, she seemed to hear laughter. It wasn't loud, but in the silence of the night, it was easy to catch.

Song Xiaoyu rolled over, dazed. With her scalp no longer itching, she was deeply sleepy, feeling as though she hadn't had such a comfortable sleep in a long time.

"Hehehe..."

Just then, the sound that had woken her up rang out again.

Song Xiaoyu, who had been on the verge of falling back asleep, heard it clearly this time. Her heart skipped a beat, and her eyes snapped open.

Everything before her was pitch black.

She immediately reached for the nightstand and turned on the bedside lamp.

A dim, pale yellow light flickered on. It wasn't bright, but it was enough to dispel the surrounding darkness. Song Xiaoyu sat up immediately, eyes wide, scanning the area around the bed.

She found nothing unusual.

She suspected she might have misheard, but after thinking it over, it still felt wrong. The sound had been very much like a person laughing; though quiet, it had been distinct, and she couldn't have been mistaken.

She sat on the bed, stunned for a moment, but heard no further sounds.

The warm, pale yellow light gave Song Xiaoyu a sense of security. The initial terror slowly faded, and she convinced herself she must have been dreaming, as she had been sleeping so soundly that she might have mistaken a dream sound for reality.

She picked up her phone from the nightstand and lit the screen to check the time; it was already four in the morning.

Song Xiaoyu had intended to turn off the light and go back to sleep, but now that she was awake, she felt a slight pressure in her lower abdomen—perhaps she had drunk too much water before bed. With no other choice, she got up, slid into her slippers, and walked into the bathroom.

The moment she entered the bathroom, she seemed to hear a faint rustling sound, but as she stepped inside, it vanished instantly, leaving Song Xiaoyu wondering if there were mice or cockroaches in the bathroom.

She grew nervous, standing at the bathroom door to look around carefully. Everything looked normal; there was nothing out of the ordinary.

After a pause, Song Xiaoyu considered going to the living room bathroom to relieve herself, but she was too afraid to go out.

Her parents were asleep, and she certainly couldn't go to their bedroom bathroom, or she would wake them.

She scanned the room one more time, and satisfied there was nothing amiss, she gathered her courage and walked toward the toilet. As she sat down, she kept looking left and right, wary that a mouse might suddenly dart out from a corner.

She was particularly worried about her feet, terrified that a cockroach might crawl onto them without her noticing.

As she looked down, her gaze inadvertently swept over the wastebasket beside the toilet. She looked inside, and her body gave a slight shudder.

She remembered throwing the withered scalp and the lock of hair into the basket earlier, but now, at a glance, the withered scalp was gone. She could only see the tips of the hair peeking out from beneath the waste paper.

In such a short time, it was impossible for the scalp and hair to be buried by waste paper; after all, she hadn't thrown any more paper into the bin since then, so how could they have been covered?

Could there be a rat in the bin?

Just as Song Xiaoyu was lost in wild speculation, her eyes widened abruptly, staring unblinkingly at the wastebasket.

She saw the waste paper covering the scalp and long hair begin to shift slowly, as if something underneath was turning upward.

A moment later, the waste paper on top rolled to the sides of the bin, and a large amount of long black hair was revealed before Song Xiaoyu's eyes. The quantity of hair had clearly increased significantly; it was thick and tangled, no longer just the single lock she had originally thrown away.

The long black hair slid and flipped upward slowly. This eerie sight left Song Xiaoyu completely rigid, her thoughts stalled, and her entire being frozen in place.

She couldn't fathom why the hair she had discarded had multiplied so much, and furthermore, it seemed like there was something beneath the hair!

About four or five seconds later, the mass of long hair flipped over completely, and a pale sheet of human skin appeared before Song Xiaoyu's eyes.